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Dublin Racing Festival (DRF) 2022

Eggs

Eggs

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Only a month or so away & so informative with Cheltenham in mind, this is surely worth it’s own thread.
 
Just missed the price as i'm sitting here on the market, but Hollow Games was big at 13/2 and still probably is at 5-1.

Ginto ain't going, if GE's quotes are correct.
Blazing Khal has looked good but beaten the same horse twice.
JWM isn't a certain runner.
HG is pretty much certain to go here.
Eric Bloodaxe is also probably overs, winner of a G2 is the other i could see shorten up a little. Pretty certain to go here, Joey has a reasonably good record in this.
 
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…PP/BFSB have a few races priced up.
 
Icare at 5s taken for the spring Juvenile
 
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Eggs said:
…Nicholls sending a few over;

https://www.attheraces.com/news/202...-sets-sights-on-dublin-racing-festival-prizes
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With Chacun unlikely to have recovered from his injury and Energumene heading to the Clarence House, Greaneteen at 11/4 looks an astounding bet to me with Nicholls all but confirming his participation. A novice might turn up here to split them a bit but you'd think Ferny gets easiest pickings of the Irish Arkle and he'd be the only one I'm worried about. Could be a truly awful Grade 1
 
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Looks that way and could be more good placing by Nicholls.
 
Is this not the perfect prep for Allaho on route to Cheltenham? Will get a good blow around here and is 16/1 against a fairly average bunch. Would win based on his Punchestown performance over the trip. The fact Willie has entered his novices (5yos too!) suggests Chacun isn’t 100% (Willie isn’t one for running his novices out of novice company) so that would leave Allaho the only other possible.

Owners said awhile ago he may go straight to the festival or run around February. Chance he goes to the race he won last year but would have to shoulder a penalty and here is a winnable Grade 1. Mullins did say he could be a Champion Chase horse after his Ryanair demolition. He’s had 2/3 runs before Cheltenham in the past and got better with each run, suggesting he takes a bit of work to get race fit. Imagine they’d like to get one more run in before the festival.

If Energumene v Shishkin was to go ahead and the former loses, I’d say it highly possible Allaho runs here :devilish:
 
GDC gone out with betfred from 4/6 to 10/11
 
Melon 11/1 E/W for the Irish Gold Cup.

Just going to have a small dabble on Melon for the Irish Gold Cup as I like his Leopardstown form, and has been generally fairly consistent. He might not win, but hopefully he'll be there or thereabouts, before having a crack at the actual Gold Cup in March.
 
Put this on the general chat thread, forgetting we had a thread for the DRF.

Ground for the DRF at Leopardstown. We have a dry week ahead so I assume the clerk of the course will be watering. We haven't had that much rain either over the last week or so. The meeting is only 12 days now. Gowran this Thursday for Thyestes day looks like being mostly soft all round.
 
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Irish Rugby said:
Put this on the general chat thread, forgetting we had a thread for the DRF.

Ground for the DRF at Leopardstown. We have a dry week ahead so I assume the clerk of the course will be watering. We haven't had that much rain either over the last week or so. The meeting is only 12 days now. Gowran this Thursday for Thyestes day looks like being mostly soft all round.
Click to expand...

Latest update below from IHRB twitter https://twitter.com/ihrb_ie/status/1485550160876814339?s=20

The ground at @LeopardstownRC is yielding, good to yielding in places (Chase) & yielding (Hurdle and Bumper). Remaining largely settled, dry and overcast over the next week. Continued watering on Chase course
 
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The most pessimistic (optimistic?) forecast (Accuweather) has some rain at the weekend and into Monday (possible 0.25 inch) and a similar amount on the Thursday and Friday before racing; the other ones are forecasting very little rain at all. Obviously, forecasts can change a lot in a week but it seems they have no choice but to keep watering extensively to even maintain the going and have safe ground.You can certainly see the chases cutting up and a few of the graded hurdles.

One more thing if you are looking at the handicaps (and I have a vested interest in the 2m hurdle on Sunday) is that the maximum field sizes quoted by HRI are almost certainly too low. They had fields of 28-30 at Christmas and, with the exception of last year when they had 22 and had Covid restrictions in place, previous years for this meeting had safety limits in line with the 'official' limits elsewhere on the HRI website (ie 28 for handicaps)
 
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I think that the lack of watering in previous years has been down to low overnight temperatures. It's a problem watering when there are overnight frosts but you'd say they should be alright this year.
 
archie said:
I think that the lack of watering in previous years has been down to low overnight temperatures. It's a problem watering when there are overnight frosts but you'd say they should be alright this year.
Click to expand...

According to the DRF website they have applied 120mm on the chase course through January
 
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